it's so easy to paint self-loathing
with bitter words and smoky lips
to draw that razor-blade framed self-portrait

venom-dripping words bolded
with eyeshadow made from the charred corpses
of innocence.

the self-esteem, crushed by lipstick-coated insults
once held up the letters that
shouted
happiness
rearranged into hatred and glass-tipped knives
(so the death of your last hope is just so much longer)
by the children who didn't know any better
than to copy their brain-dead elders - one generation
after another, a domino line of falling civilization -

paint your fingernails with the color of
your fellow miseries,
their angst-stank poetry printed
on the lie-skins of those long dead
(or heartbroken. it's hard to tell.)
to coat your naked gray body as it poses
for photographs that will never be
developed
like your sense of humor.

baring your insecurities for those who care
(they never do)
to see,
blind as they are,

so take your crayons, melted in the flames of a hell long-forgotten
and etch designs onto the soles of your feet
so for every step you take
you remember the painting
that you never stopped crying enough
to finish.